An author and journalist told his audience that God does not exist and religion does not teach morality.

“[Religion] teaches the opposite. If you throw your sins on others you are fine,” said speaker Christopher Hitchens. “Religion is not a moral preachment. We are primates.”

The Sun Room of the Memorial Union was overflowing with people.

He said he speaks for the “emergency of mobilizing the society, secular constitutional society against the forces of theocracy.”

“There [are] debates of intelligent design and evolution,” Hitchens said. “There is a scientific consensus.”

Hitchens said the current system is not equal, letting churches be tax free.

“If we are to have equal time, we must have a proposal that any church that receives any tax break must give half of its time to the teaching of Darwinism,” he said.

Hitchens said even though most atheists think religion teaches morality, he does not believe that is the case.

He said he does not support the war in Iraq but did favor the ousting of Saddam Hussein, the former dictator of Iraq.

He said the current administration has not made any remark to defend Christians in Iraq which he believes disproves the theory that the United States went there for religious reasons.

“Four or 5 percent of the population is Christian, and these people are being destroyed by the parties of God just like in Lebanon and Palestine,” he said.

Hitchens spoke about his trips to North Korea.

“Kim Il-Sung is a religion,” he said.

Hitchens said in North Korea that a son and his father are thought as their own religion and consider themselves worthy of praise.

“I cannot think of a more horrible system; where the only duty of a system is to praise the leader from the time you get up to the moment you go to bed,” Hitchens said. “They call it paradise, I can’t imagine that it is in North Korea.”

Hitchens said the citizens are like being the property of the country. However, he said unlike religion, you can die and get out of North Korea.

“You can’t get out of monotheism, it will follow you for infinity,” he said.

He called those who practice monotheism serfs.

“That is true of all the parties of God, to extinguish the human body and make it the will of a superior [being],” he said.

Hitchens said the United States is designed to repel any sort of theocracy.

After a 20-minute speech, he took questions for the audience for about an hour.

“I think he is very intelligent,” said Zachary Westhoff, junior in animal science. “His message was you can be religious of any sort, just not force it on other people.”

Westhoff said Hitchens can be a little harsh even though he enjoyed the humor.

“I agree with his statements tonight,” said Josh Weisskopf, senior in computer engineering, who is also an atheist. “There were not as many hecklers in the crowd as I thought there would be.”

Weisskopf said the speech was better than other similar speeches he had heard before, which he described as hit or miss.